Jane Wyman: Screen legend dies at 93 : Netglimse.com News

Jane Wyman: Screen legend dies at 93

Classical actress Jane Wyman passed away yesterday at 93, at her Palm Springs home.

Jane Wyman stayed at or near the top in Hollywood for more than 40 years. As she explained, "I've been an extra, chorus girl, Grade B actress, comedienne friend of the star, major player, Oscar winner, and TV series survivor."

Jane Wyman stopped to blink back great tears of self-pity. She was following the waiter at Los Angeles' posh Garden restaurant when she realized he was leading her to an inferior table.

The Oscar-winning legend was one of Hollywood's richest and most durable stars and simply marched over to a better booth. The perks of stardom were very important to her.

During her Falcon Crest heyday in the 1980s her annual pay packet of $1.6 million made her one of America's top salaried women. By contrast, ex-husband Ronald Reagan took home $200,000 as President.

She was born Sarah Jane Fulks in 1914 (she had claimed 1917) in St. Joseph, Mo., where her father had once been mayor. In 1929 her father died and her mother moved her to Los Angeles from Missouri.

After years as an extra, she signed with agent Bill Demarest (later co-star of My Three Sons). "He got me an audition with dance director LeRoy Prinze and I was signed as a chorus girl at Warners." Her name was changed to Jane Wyman.

Wyman even remembered her first line of dialogue in a movie. "It was in 1937's Stage Struck and I stepped from the chorus and said to Dick Powell, `My name is Bessie Fuffnick. I swim, dive, imitate wild birds and play the trombone!' Twelve years later Dick wired me, `Dear Miss Fuffnick, forget the trombone, you also win Oscars.''

For three years Wyman had nothing but bit parts. She was just part of the crowd in 1938's Brother Rat and so was another Warners hopeful, Ronald Reagan. They fell in love during a promotional tour. Wyman had been married twice previously.

Her big break came when Paramount's Billy Wilder signed her for The Lost Weekend (1945), which won Oscars as best picture and best actor. And at 31 the new, serious Jane Wyman was born.

MGM director Clarence Brown quickly borrowed her for Ma Baxter in his expensive production of The Yearling (1946) opposite Gregory Peck and Wyman won her first Oscar nomination.

Wyman got her chance at Warners when producer Jerry Wald cast her as the deaf teenager in Johnny Belinda (1948). She won her Oscar against heavy competition: Irene Dunne, Olivia deHavilland, Barbara Stanwyck and Ingrid Bergman.

Critics dubbed Wyman's subsequent films "Wyman weepies". She explained, "For my art I was deaf (Johnny Belinda), blind (Magnificent Obsession, 1954), crippled (The Glass Menagerie, 1950), loveless (The Blue Veil, 1951), plain (Miracle In The Rain, 1956). But I never felt sorry for myself – that's why the films were so popular.''

She inherited Bette Davis's trailer on the lot as a sign of her new status and in 1954 was named one of the Top 10 box office draws in the U.S.

The day after she won her Oscar she sued Reagan for divorce. She complained he talked politics all the time. They had two children, daughter Maureen (who died in 2001) and an adopted son, Michael. Wyman married and divorced musician Freddie Karger twice.

She took a third Oscar nomination in 1951 for The Blue Veil and a fourth in 1954 for Magnificent Obsession.

Soon after, it became clear "my kind of picture was going out of style so I headed for TV," she said

NBC signed her to a unique, three-season deal to produce, host and occasionally star in a new anthology series Fireside Presents The Jane Wyman Theater (1955-58). After the three seasons Wyman sold the syndication rights to ABC for a cool $1 million in profits.

She returned to movies– in such family fare as Holiday For Lovers (1959), the Disney flicks Pollyanna (1960) and Bon Voyage (1962), and How To Commit Marriage (1969).

She considered herself semi-retired when in 1979 she received a call from Earl Hamner Jr. asking her to star in his new prime-time soap Falcon Crest.

In person, Wyman sported the earthy language of a longshoreman. She carried her pack of Kent cigarettes with her everywhere.